The Rise and Fall of the Murdoch Empire by John Lisners

Author:John Lisners [John Lisners]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781857827439
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2012-08-18T04:00:00+00:00

POLICE AND THE PRESS

Throughout my association with News International there had always been a good working relationship with both the City of London police, in charge of London’s financial centre, and the Metropolitan police (generally meant to refer to Scotland Yard). The fact that we were prepared to expose bent coppers did not alter that relationship although it might have strained it at different times. I had also taken part in a Sunday People exposé of West End Central police station in which we named high ranking police officers who were on the take, colluding with London gangsters. Laurie Manifold, who at the time was assistant editor of the Sunday People, headed the investigation and amassed irrefutable evidence of wrongdoing which resulted in hefty prison sentences for the culprits. It led Sir Robert Mark, Scotland Yard’s tough commissioner, to take immediate and strong action to eradicate corruption. However, among a huge workforce in any organisation, there is always likely to be a small percentage of employees who are crooked, just as in newspapers.

Within any law enforcement organisation or agency, employees are lectured about the standards expected of them and the heavy penalties for when these are not met. For that reason, Former assistant commissioner Robert Quick, head of anti-corruption at the Yard between 1999 and 2001, addressed this when he accused journalists of corrupting police. In his statement to the Leveson inquiry, Quick said, ‘Around 2000, I wrote a short report highlighting the role of journalists in promoting corrupt relationships with and making corrupt payments to officers for stories about famous people and high-profile investigations in the MPS [Metropolitan police service]. I proposed an investigation of these newspapers and officers on the basis that I believed that journalists were not paying bribes out of their own pockets but were either falsely accounting for their expenses and therefore defrauding their employers or that the organisations were aware of the reasons for the payments and were themselves complicit in making corrupt payments to police officers.’ During an investigation called Operation Nigeria, he said, it became clear that officers were receiving between £500 and £2,000 for stories about celebrities, politicians, and the Royal family as well as reports of police investigations. These were leaked by officers already suspected of corruption.

The fact that payments were made to police officers cannot be doubted and, indeed, was admitted by Rebekah Brooks to a parliamentary inquiry, but it is highly unlikely that journalists set out to corrupt officers. For an officer to accept a bribe or incentive he or she must already be corrupt. Apart from constituting a criminal offence, it would also be insulting to suggest a financial incentive to an honest police officer as that would be tantamount to inferring corruption on the part of that person.

The more likely scenario is that a policeman or law enforcement officer will have made an anonymous approach to a newspaper, offering information in exchange for payment. It is perfectly acceptable for a journalist to negotiate a payment for a member of the general public.

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